


1/128th

by elistaire



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Coulson gets his way through talking, Family, Gen, Genealogy, Genetics, mtDNA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elistaire/pseuds/elistaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all started with a quote. </p>
<p>Captain America had been giving his usual post-battle speech to the media, extolling the virtues of his team and the bravery of the general public, and had said, in his matter-of-fact way, “I don’t have any family of my own, but all of America is my family.”  He’d gone on like that for another minute or two, but the one quote stuck, and was printed and reprinted in the news, and then on the cover of magazines. The government loved the patriotic quote, the media loved the pathos, and the empathy and sympathy it engendered from the public was heart-sick and heart-felt. The quote sparked an internet sensation:  to find at least one relative for Captain America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1/128th

**Author's Note:**

> I admit it, this story is utterly self-indulgent for me. I wanted to fix-it a little bit that the characters either had crap families or families that died early.
> 
> I probably am mangling the actual family histories of the characters.

It all started with a quote. 

Captain America had been giving his usual post-battle speech to the media, extolling the virtues of his team and the bravery of the general public, and had said, in his matter-of-fact way, “I don’t have any family of my own, but all of America is my family.” He’d gone on like that for another minute or two, but the one quote stuck, and was printed and reprinted in the news, and then on the cover of magazines. The government loved the patriotic quote, the media loved the pathos, and the empathy and sympathy it engendered from the public was heart-sick and heart-felt. The quote sparked an internet sensation: to find at least one relative for Captain America. 

~~~ 

“Sir, have you see this?” Agent Coulson held out a sheaf of papers. 

Director Fury’s eyes narrowed as he took the papers and leafed through them quickly. “I have a lot of urgent issues today. Why is this important?”

“It’s gone viral, sir,” Coulson explained. 

Fury looked up at him and handed the papers back. “Everyone has family, Agent. So the American people want to find a relative for the Captain.”

“Not everyone is a symbol of freedom, sir,” Coulson explained. “If they don’t find a be-speckled librarian or a kindergarten teacher, or something similar, sir, there could be lash back.” Coulson paused, then added, “Finding an individual would create a vulnerability for Captain Rogers.”

“In more way than one,” Fury noted, and Coulson nodded. 

“A person to be kidnapped or exploited, obviously, but all of Captain Rogers' friends and family are dead now. I believe he would welcome finding a relative. Very much. It would be an emotional liability.”

“And the world is more full of criminals than librarians,” Fury said. “Fine. Get on it. Find out if he actually does have any living relations. Erase the paper trail. Then come to me. We’ll decide if the relatives are black sheep and should be let into the pasture or not.”

“Already on it, sir.”

~~~ 

“Anything?” Steve asked, but Tony just shook his head. His eyes didn’t even pull away from the screen on which he was furiously tapping. 

“I’ve got Jarvis doing a trawl through the internet, just in case someone out there left a crumb, but I’ve got nothing.” Tony frowned even more in concentration. “This shouldn’t be that difficult. With the boom in genealogy, you’d think somebody would have entered the data.”

“If there is data to even find,” Steve said. He found he wasn’t bitter, just slightly excited. He wouldn’t get his hopes up, of course, but if the search turned out to unearth someone, well, Steve would let himself actually celebrate then. At the moment, he was guarded. Everyone he knew from his life before was gone, and his parents had died well before the war. He hadn’t thought there were any relatives back then, but this was a different age. The ability to search for information now was mindboggling. And since his words had inadvertently touched off a search frenzy, he’d gotten a little swept up in it himself. 

“Don’t be negative,” Tony said. “If there’s anyone out there, I’ll find him or her. Even if it is a third cousin in-law twice removed. If you go back far enough, we’ll find someone.”

Steve smiled. “If you go back far enough, we’re all related,” he said. “Which is nice. But I wouldn’t mind finding someone a little closer. A cousin sounds nice. She or he’d probably be retired already. I hope they wouldn’t mind the hassle that comes with being my relative.” His thoughts drifted as he imagined having someone to invite over for celebrations, or possibly even be invited over to holidays. To exchange birthday cards with. Someone to share Thanksgiving dinner with. Perhaps an entire family of someones. 

“I’ll keep at it, Cap. Don’t worry. If there’s a family out there, I’ll find it.”

~~~ 

Coulson stared at his computer screen as an idea occurred to him. It would be beyond the pale, but he supposed he needed to make sure. He'd been searching the outside world of information for a substantial amount of time without success, and that by itself had made him uneasy. There was usually something to find. 

As unlikely as it seemed, he wouldn't leave any stone unturned. He walked down four flights of stairs to the sub-sub-sub-basement, and used his access code to enter. He was one of five people that had permission to enter this space. 

The computer system in this room was not connected to any network, hence making it unhackable from the outside. There were only two terminals that existed, one in this room, and one as a backup that was never turned on, and was locked in a vault. Of course, if those two computers failed, there were always the paper copies. Coulson glanced sideways at the bankers boxes that lined the walls, all carefully labeled with the appropriate code numbers. He wouldn’t be searching through those, no matter how curious he might be.

Feeling slightly twitchy, he brought up the antiquated computer program. Being on its own server with limited access meant that no viruses got in, but also that there was no need to upgrade the program. It was practically archaic now. Of course, only a handful of agents were entered each year, and some years there were no new entries, so it wasn’t anywhere near capacity, even on this antiquated system. 

It did allow for limited searching, so Coulson punched in the information that he had and waited while the system began its agonizingly slow search process. No mobile devices were allowed into this room, so Coulson had brought a paperback. He settled down on the one wooden chair in the room and waited. 

After an hour and forty-five minutes, the program had brought up three files. The first two were erroneous, but the third was pay dirt. Coulson stared at the screen. He supposed stranger things had happened, and certainly he’d come across odder coincidences, but this one took the cake. He sighed. 

Then he hit print, and waited while the equally ancient dot matrix printer worked, and took the piece of paper to Fury. 

This decision was above his pay grade. 

~~~ 

“It’s getting ugly out there,” Bruce commented as he flipped between the news stations. 

Steve glanced up from the newspaper that he’d been reading. There was a short news piece on still trying to find a relative for him. Somehow, the furor over it hadn’t died down when nobody had been instantly found, but gained even more momentum. It was as if the American people were determined to find someone, come hell of high water, and took it as an affront to their very core. Steve had given a short press speech just the other day to try to sooth ruffled feathers, again expounding on the Avengers as his family, and on the American people as his extended family, and how they were all responsible for taking care of each other as a nation, but it hadn’t calmed anything down. 

“I know,” Steve said. The longer it went, the more sure he was that there wasn’t anyone out there. His parents had died when he was young, and before his transformation. He didn’t have brothers or sisters, and his parents didn’t have brothers or sisters. His grandparents had died before he was born. His family tree was pretty much dead, except for himself. 

Bruce glanced at him. “It’s not all bad,” he said. “When it’s just you, you can make your own traditions. Besides, the rest of us all seem to have minimal family, too. Except Thor. And look at all the trouble that’s caused _him_.”

Steve smiled and shook his head. Certainly he hoped that he didn’t find out he had a brother that was quite as much trouble as Loki.

~~~ 

Fury glared at the piece of paper in his hand. “What the hell,” he said. 

“I had much the same reaction, sir,” Coulson said. “But it appears to be legitimate. SHIELD routinely _collects_ all external paperwork on its special assignment agents. This protects both the organization and the agents. When they successfully reintegrate into the public sphere, we _refile_ the external paperwork, of course.”

“I know this,” Fury said. It was standard procedure for spies, assassins, and other agents with particularly useful talents. SHIELD basically found and destroyed every piece of paper, like birth certificates, graduation degrees, even tax forms, that existed about that individual. Most agents on special assignment tended to die on the job, so reintegrating them was rare, but it did happen on occasion. Retirement from SHIELD wasn’t entirely unknown.

“This means that the general public would never be able to find the existence of this individual,” Coulson stated. “And because it is on an internal server, it also means that Tony Stark wouldn’t be able to hack it, unless he had physical access. The room looks like a broom closet. I doubt he’s aware of this. There are no other living relatives, and SHIELD thoroughly scrubbed the history. There’s no way for anyone to know, unless we tell them. So, the decision is entirely up to you, sir.”

Fury handed the piece of paper back to Coulson. “I’ll sleep on it.”

“Of course, sir.”

 

~~~ 

“I do not envy you, Captain,” Thor said. He looked thoughtful, and forthright. 

“You don’t?” Steve paused in setting up another punching bag and turned to his teammate. “How so?”

“Family is purpose, is it not?” Thor said. A sympathetic, sad look had settled in his face as he gazed at Steve. “It defines who we are, though not what we may become. As many arguments as I have with my father or brother, they are still my father and brother. They are mine, as I am theirs, for good or ill.”

Steve stared at Thor. An intense ache had started in his gut at Thor’s words, because it had caught at the hidden reason he had tamped down, the indefatigable want for family. “Yes,” he finally said. “But there is also the family you make for yourself, and I’m proud to call you and the other Avengers teammates, and family.”

Thor thumped him on the shoulder. “As it should be, Captain, and as I feel also. No truer words have been spoken.”

~~~ 

Coulson kept the piece of paper in the inside breast pocket of his suit for the rest of the day. 

~~~ 

“Sir,” Natasha said, “permission to create a celebrity scandal.” She’d considered the available options, and had determined that the best way to move past the current impasse was to supersede it with something freshly diverting. The current status was not good for morale, nor team functioning. Rogers’ attention was elsewhere, and it was a tender topic with most of the team members. 

Fury considered the request. “Granted. Nothing too serious,” he said. “We need a media diversion, not another frenzy.”

“Understood, sir.” 

~~~ 

Coulson approached Director Fury the next morning. “Boss?” he asked. 

Fury pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Burn the paper, Agent Coulson,” he said. “And let sleeping dogs lie. The public will move on soon.”

“Sir, the team can be very discreet, and the general public wouldn’t need to be aware—"

Fury cut him off. “Not this secret,” he said. “It provides a vulnerability, and if I can help it, it won’t be exploited. There are enemies out there, and this is a weakness.”

“Yes, Sir.” Coulson brought out the piece of paper and set it in the ashtray on Fury’s desk. He didn’t smoke, but a lighter was a useful tool, so he carried one. He used it to set the piece of paper ablaze, and they both watched it burn. 

“That will be all, Agent Coulson.”

~~~ 

“Good work today,” Steve said as the team dusted themselves off and prepared to depart. Group training sessions were scheduled twice weekly for those that could make them, and Steve was proud of the configurations he set-up to help the team develop comradeship and technique. They intuitively worked well together, but the more time they spent honing their skills, the better everyone meshed. 

“Later, gang,” Tony said. His face plate snapped back into place. “I’ve got a shindig to go cause embarrassment at.” With a quiet roar from his repulsors, he was gone. 

Clint and Natasha gave Steve appreciative nods, and then both started on their own ways. Clint gave Steve a sharp look, pointed to his watch, and then a thumbs up before vanishing. It meant that if Steve wanted, after Clint and Natasha finished with some SHIELD business, that they were headed out for a drink and Steve was invited. He’d started hanging out with the two agents some evenings and he quite enjoyed it. 

It had been some weeks since his quote about family had ensnared the public’s attention, and only a celebrity wedding and some regretful behavior by a public official had finally kicked it to the curb. Steve had found Natasha and Clint excellent listeners about the whole debacle, and trusted friends who empathized with him. Neither of them had any family left. Tasha felt it was too dangerous to get near anyone who might remain, and Clint had confided that his now-deceased brother had gone bad. 

Steve turned to find Thor, and waved at Bruce, who usually only watched from the observation deck. They hadn’t yet figured out how to involve Hulk in actual training, though Steve was sure he’d tease apart the problem eventually. 

“Captain,” Thor said. “I have some ideas about future training endeavors.”

~~~

Bruce vortexed the small tubes and carefully placed them in the centrifuge. A slight cough at the far end of the room let him know someone had entered and didn’t want to startle him. He looked over. “Agent Coulson,” he said. “What can I help you with?”

“I have some forms,” Coulson replied, and he produced them and placed them on a benchtop. “It’ll only take a moment.”

Bruce sighed, but went to fill out the forms. It seemed there were forms of some sort every few days. Release forms, requisition forms, permission to continue existing forms. He sometimes thought Coulson spent his time creating new forms just for Bruce to sign. In the past month, it seemed like there were more forms than usual. 

Coulson was peering around the lab with some curiosity. “Tony mentioned a project the other day,” he said. “Something about genome sequencing.”

“Oh, yes,” Bruce said, absently as he scanned through the form. “We’re comparing mine with the Other Guy, and mine from before, also. There’s obviously a codon difference in transcription. I mean, there must be different proteins being produced, or else the phenotypes wouldn’t be different, right?”

"Right,” Couslon murmured. “And did you also do this same analysis on Captain Rogers?”

“No. I mean, not yet.” Bruce stopped looking through the papers as he followed up the question in his own mind. “That’s a good idea. We should run his standards through, too. It’d be good for comparison. Thanks.”

“And that’s by looking at the DNA?” Couslon asked. He pointed to one of the papers. “Initial there, as well, please.”

“Yes. Nuclear DNA,” Bruce clarified. “That’s what codes for the protein production.”

Coulson looked moderately interested. “Ah, yes. Tony mentioned another project with some other kind of DNA.”

“Mitochondrial,” Bruce said. “We were going to sequence the team. Just in case.” He shrugged. 

“In case?” Coulson asked. 

“Well,” Bruce said and tried not to fidget. “To be blunt, we all lead dangerous lives. If something were to happen, the only way to identify the body might be DNA. We already have a nuclear DNA database, and there is more mito DNA than nuclear, so if someone was…um…burned, for example….” He shrugged again. “But it’s taken a back seat, with this other project. It was just extra insurance.”

Coulson looked thoughtful. “Of course,” he said, as if he were kindly understanding and gently forgiving, and changed the subject back to the papers, “Initial there, too, please.”

Bruce finished initialing, and Coulson left, but the way he’d said “Of course” sat heavily in Bruce’s gut. He suddenly felt very selfish for not finishing the mtDNA project. What if someone did need to be identified? 

~~~ 

“What’s this for again?” Steve asked as Bruce handed him a cotton swab on a wooden stick. 

“Buccal swab,” Bruce said. “We’re building a database of the team. Just in case we need to identify someone.”

“Oh,” Steve said, understanding. The Army had taken fingerprints for this same reason, back during the war. “Just in case,” he said. “That’s a good idea. There’s nothing worse than not knowing.”

Bruce nodded, blinking at Steve. “Yeah.”

~~~ 

Tony frowned at the computer display. “Jarvis, looks like a sample duplicate in wells A4 and A8. Go back and run them from the original tubes again.”

“Yes, sir. Results should be ready in a few hours.”

“Thanks. And upload the other profiles to the server, please.”

~~~ 

Steve entered the lab and saw Tony and Bruce quietly debating in the corner, heads together. They both turned and fixed him with equally intense stares. “What’s up?” he asked as he sat down on a stool. Clint was already in the room, leaning against the wall. 

“No idea,” Clint said. “The haven’t told me yet, but they’ve been whispering like fiends for the last twenty minutes. And gesturing.”

Steve watched as Tony’s arms swept through the air, and his hands spoke volumes. Bruce shook his head and waved his hands just as vehemently. “Looks like quite the discussion.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Clint said. “I hope it isn’t more aliens.” He paused. “Should we call the rest of the team?”

“Jarvis?” Steve asked. 

“Yes, sir?”  
“Can you tell us what’s going on?”

“Presently I’m not at liberty to say, sir. But I would suggest that you may find the materials on the desk to your left to be of some interest.” 

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Steve said. He kept an eye on Tony and Bruce, but they were back to arguing with each other and didn’t notice a thing. Clint was already digging through the paperwork. 

Steve frowned at it. It was obviously computer print outs from a lab analysis. His brain would decode it in a moment, as it started to make more sense the more he looked at the schematics. There were graphs and squiggly lines, and—

Clint made a small noise. 

Steve looked over. “Clint?” 

Clint’s eyes had grown large and he stared at Steve, then looked to Bruce and Tony, who Steve noted had stopped talking and were now staring at them. “It’s the same, Cap,” he said. “You and me.”

“Clint,” Tony said. “We were just talking about the best way to tell you. Honestly. And you stole all the thunder.”

“What’s the same?” Steve asked. He touched his fingertips to the papers on the desk. “These?”

“It’s what you wanted—" Bruce said, before Tony cut him off. 

“Look, it’s all good. Unexpected, right? I mean, what are the odds? But, hey, happy ending, and all that.”

“Tony, you aren’t making sense,” Steve said. “Bruce?” Usually when one of them was talking over his head in technical terms, the other one could be counted on to translate. 

Clint interrupted. “It’s their DNA project, Cap. They were doing mitchondrial DNA sequencing. On us. You gave a sample, remember?”

Steve nodded. He remembered. “In case something happened. So we could be identified.”

“It’s maternally inherited,” Bruce said. “Mitochndrial DNA is. That means it is conserved from mother to children. Unlike nuclear DNA, which is recombined, so that everyone except identical siblings has a different sequence.”

“So?” Steve asked. He glanced to Clint. “Ours is the same?” He frowned. “What does that mean?”

Suddenly Clint grinned. “It means we’re related, Steve. That’s what it means.”

“Through both your mothers’ sides,” Tony put in. “There’s no way to tell how far back, of course. I mean, there is, sort of. It’s complicated. We don’t have the data for a good extrapolation right now. So, uh, congratulations?” He opened his arms wide. “Family time!” he said. “Jarvis, find some champagne! We’re going to celebrate!” 

~~~ 

Tony’s impromptu celebration did involve a lot of expensive champagne, and pizza delivery, and loud music and mini-firecrackers set off inside. 

Steve saw Clint pull Natasha aside early to explain, which prompted a very expressively raised eyebrow, and Steve spent a few minutes to bring Thor up to speed. After that, things were a blur of eating, drinking, and talking. Until Steve finally found himself outside on the roof terrace, catching some cold, fresh air. 

Clint came out of the shadows, and Steve resisted the impulse to twitch. “Hey,” he said. 

“Hey,” Steve said back. 

Clint was silent for a long moment. “That was sudden,” he said.

“Yes, it was. But welcome.” Steve glanced sideways at Clint, but his face was enough in the shadows that he couldn’t get a read on his expression. “I still hold to what I said originally. We may be related by blood, and that’s a good deal in my book, but its more important to be family because we want to be.”

“Do you want to be?” Clint asked. He asked it casually and Steve had the impression that his answer wouldn’t be taken personally. Clint didn’t need Steve to bolster his own self-worth, but he was honestly asking if Steve was interested in _being_ family. Or if it was just going to be some interesting tidbit of background information mentioned in the same way that one might perform a party trick as the whim suited. 

“I think I’d like to work at it,” Steve said. “Neither of us got a fair shake the first time around in the family department. I’d like to think I could do better for you, _if_ you wanted.” 

“Turkey at Thanksgiving?” Clint asked. 

“And all the trimmings,” Steve added. 

Clint finally turned so Steve could see the slight smile on his face. "I'm willing to give it a try if you are. I haven't had any family in a long time. Might be nice, for a change. To have someone."

Steve stuck out his hand and Clint shook it. "That's the whole point," Steve said. "Having someone."


End file.
